A printing device that thermally transfers color materials of a thermal transfer sheet onto a printing medium to form an image, so as to manufacture a printed matter has been conventionally known. In order to protect the image formed on the printing medium, such a printing device forms a transparent image protection layer on the image. In this case, a surface of the image protection layer for protecting the image is subjected to a matte processing to form thereon a roughened pattern, whereby the printed matter has a matte finish.
As described above, the conventional printing device subjects the image protection layer surface to a matte processing to form thereon a roughened pattern. The roughened pattern has a plurality of pixels arranged like a grid, which include high-energy pixels that are formed by applying high energy, and low-energy pixels that are arranged between the high-energy pixels and formed by applying low energy.
However, when a mass of the high-energy pixels enlarges, there is a possibility that thermal energy of the high-energy pixels excessively increases, which impairs glossiness of the roughened pattern as a whole.
Patent Document: W318525413